Illusion Motorsports, a California custom motorcycle shop in Orange County with 30 years of experience, stated to me that as an EPA/CARB certified motorcycle manufacturer they can build for you a custom bike legal in California and all US States.

For example, if you like this cool Chopper called “Razorhell”, they can turn it into a road legal, insurable custom bike, of course after doing some modifications like change of exhaust, addition of turn signals, etc. (you know the drill…)

How much to ride the legal version of this one? $24,999. And what do you get is a custom built on a slightly modified Ultima frame, a 114″ Ultima motor fiied with a Mikuni carb, an Ultima transmission and primary drive. Gas tank is genuine modified Harley, front & rear spoke wheels are from DNA, brake calipers from Performance Machine, sanitary switching system is by Grip Ace, a “two eight” rear fender and a custom seat from Danny Grey. Many options available. All your questions answered by Rusty Coones at 714-894-1942 or visit Illusion Motorcycles

When I think of Illusion I think of Donnie Bitman. Is Donnie involved in this project? For the newer people in our industry, Donnie Bitman and Illusion was one of the first if not the first mass produced “custom bike” manufacturers way back when, around 1992 or1993. That is before Tiitan, Big Dog, A.I.H. Saxon, Swift, etc.. Last I heard, Donnie was in the Carson City, NV area..

To Tom M. Surgical-Steeds began to offer complete Steed built bikes with very few O.E.M. Harley parts. In 1994 Surgical-Steeds applied for and received a manufacturers license from the federal government granting Steeds the authority to apply Federal Vehicle Identification Numbers to its brand of American Heavyweight Cruiser Motorcycles. Thus the Steed Musclebike® motorcycle was born in America, with its own Pedigree, #1S9 at the beginning of its VIN, Assigned by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).
In 1991 the Los Angeles riots broke out, and this was the impetus for the Covington family to relocate back to John’s roots in Arizona. A location in Scottsdale, a suburb to the northeast of Phoenix was chosen. The expanded version of Covingtons’ retail vision was incorporated in Arizona dubbed Surgical-Steeds Classic American Motorcycles Inc..
John was ahead of his time. He was building “concept bikes” long ago. I think he even did a “stealth fighter” bike when that plane first was produced?

Jim C. You can buy CARB certified engines or Euro 3 compliant engines. But that is only part of the equation. F.I. or Carb, Exhaust certs, wheel size, pulley tooth sizing, I can go on, as many of us know in the certification puzzle.
Contact N.C.D.L. in california for information. They do offer a harley engine, that you may be able to “piggyback” on their certification to use in CA.
But to answer you question, on building bikes, and certifying them through this process? In the neighborhood of 16-20,000.00 dollars, ( and then, paying to start over, if you fail any part of the test to get to the cert!)

Fredp- one correction to the CARB cert thing. CARB now allows small volume builders to piggyback on the certs from companies like S&S assuming you use the CARB approved motor they offer and also install it per their specs and follow the rest of the CARB rules. Back when I applied and received my CARB cert it was well over $20k, not including the price of the bike you had to build to send to the lab for them to punish for several months.

I’ll throw my new Maverick into the contest for best street legal bike for under $20k too.

You want a cheap bike for 20k or below. No problem, I have one ready to go right now for $18,000. Put your money where your mouth is, but don’t expect any custom fittment of these “catalog” parts or extra fabrication as was done on this bike. I will match any of you on price if you will match my quality on the build!

I wonder what this company will do once they find out that ULTIMA is no longer MAKING FRAMES!
I just talked to my rep yesterday and was TOLD they are no longer making frames and that the jigs will be sold very soon.I was also told they might continue to make frames just to farm them out to china. I am in an area with not that much pocket book depth and sometimes when I have a customer with a 15-20k budget for a scratch build I look to DNA and ULTIMA.

You are right on about Bittman.
The company was called: Illusion Motorcycles of America
Donnie started it in Lemon Grove, CA (San Diego) and won two
top gun shoot outs at Sturgis, which won the company a huge amount of publicity,
and ta dah: IMCA
Donnie was the first guy to be licensed to manufacture “catalog” high perf Harley clones.
Avg price: $25,000, so not much has changed in almost 15 years.. price wise, for Illusion,
IF Donnie is still the company.
I ran the business for him, that’s how I know.
Shortly after rcv’g the manufacturing license he qualified for CA smog, by manufacturing
less than 2000 bikes/year.
We sold over 200 bikes – around the world, in fact – I couldn’t imagine why
anyone in Indonesia wanted one of these, but we send them there and to Australia, and
to 50 states. Your bike was titled

? your bike was titled: ILLUSION.
We/I built up 28 dealerships and was in the middle of finallizing the
warranty program when we established a drag race in Bakersfield, CA:
Illusion vs Harley
Illusion won!! Yippie.
……because the Harley broke, period. We wouldn’t have, otherwise.

Donnie fancied himself a racer all of a sudden
and lost interest in building Illusions.
I left the company when Donnie refused to focus on the business.
I heard that he finally delivered the last order a couple of years later,
but THAT i can’t confirm personally.

I’d like to know how many Illusions are still on the road.
That would say something. Ya think?

I was and still am a huge Donnie Bitman Illusion Fan. He would use STD cases, and Axtell jugs to make some nice motors putting out an unheard of 120HP at the time. His bikes were designed to ride fast, they were not chopper posers that cant turn around in a parking lot. Donnie use a lot of fiberglass and plastic that eventually cracked instead of metal fab. I saw very little metal fab. He didnt do a lot of fancy molding. But his bikes still looked good. I would LOVE to find one today from the 90’s. I would buy it! I have a frame he designed and had Atlas build for him called a Bigfoot, but modified to take real twin shocks instead of a soft tail. It was much stronger than the FXR Kenny Boyce frames he was using at the time. I still have yet to compete it. So many projects I have…